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heh, so if I'm reading this right, they know the old installer is hard to use

Well, indirectly, since the new installer isn't "easy". The "easy" route is picking from a list of a whopping 7 choices. Pick "Desktop Machine" if you are okay with KDE, GNOME, and several other WM's being installed, and lots of random cruft, OR you get to do "Manual Package Selection", and wade through Debian's 8000+ packages. Neither the 7-super-mega-package-selection, nor the Manual Package Selection, is an option for most sane people. The only way to do it really is just installing the base system, and proceed with a self-paced Gentoo-style bit-by-bit install using apt-get. The difference in time spent installing, for me, was statistically insignificant.

This isn't necessarily bad, some of us like putting together systems that way, but thats another story...

Wow, defaulting to DHCP without even asking seems like an awfully annoying idea to me :P

I think the Debian folks have done a wonderful job so far; the auto-detection is a godsend. That being said, I think that the UI could still use some work. The one thing that caught my eye while going through the instalation was that I would have no idea how to use the screens presented. As an example:

On the second step of the installer, it asks you to select a region. On this screen, there appears to be perhaps a menu and then a <Go Back> button at the bottom. When I first saw this screen, the only thing I could think to myself is "How do I select the region? I don't see a radio button, I don't see checkmarks and the only action related button is it go back - How do I get off of this screen?"

It seems that there is a mixture of UI techniques. Either the entire installer should be menu based, in which case the <Go Back> button would be integrated into the menu or they should go with a wizard approach in which each screen has buttons for <Go Back> and <Go Forward> and each select list is turned into perhaps a radio or check-mark based list. I think that the pure-wizard type solution would be preferable as most user's have gone through wizard's before.
Along the same lines, when the term "select" is used in a text based installer, it should be clear HOW an item is to be selected? Do I hit enter? Spacebar? Am I supposed to be able to use a mouse? If so, why doesn't mine work etc etc etc.

Well, thus ends my two-cents worth. I hope that anyone reading this doesn't take this as an insult towards the installer team: they are doing wonderful things and they should keep in mind that thing about UIs is that opions on them are like arseholes: everyone has one.

Yummy, he has given out his root passwd in one of the images. It is ******. Let's go hack his machine. :p

Partitioning in particular is difficult (as always)